The Fisherman and Me
I watched him cast into the flowing stream.
"Supper waits for bait!" he teases over his shoulder to where I sit on the bank. The Fisherman would have me join him. This is after all what we retired early to do. How can I tell him that I cannot bear the moment when a living fish comes out of water, taken by my hand? How can I tell him the dead eyes staring up at me from a dinner plate sends me into pangs of guilt for having robbed that life from its safety of flowing waters? How can I explain my weak ability to dismiss all this when that fish has been caught by someone else's effort than my own? So I procrastinate with a book to read. "Get'em, Bwanna!"
In the woods around are birds conversing in a language all their own. A breeze wafts down towering bluffs across the stream. The Fisherman and Me, we fall obliquely silent as nature around us. In this manner we pass another day...
That night as he snores softly beside me, the Fisherman dreams of fishing the streams of his life. We travel roads leading to adventure in a truck camper, looking ahead with the love of life that has brought us to this moment. As for me, the moments of doubt passing on the river bank have disappeared and the fish was eaten. It was delicious.
With the sleeping Fisherman beside me, noises of the night fade into a night rhythmn moving with the breeze through trees, leading the way for me to follow him. A bush scratches melodiously against the screen by my head. Tomorrow will be here soon, with more adventures and dilemmas. The Fisherman and Me will deal with whatever comes our way.
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